13 Interesting Facts About Giant Pandas

When we
think of giant pandas, we think of lovely black and white bears. They are cute
and have many fans all over the world. But do you really know pandas? The following are 13 fascinating facts to
help you know more about them.

Lynne
Buddin, a three-time traveler with China Highlights, is a panda lover who
knows pandas first hand, and is the main contributor below...

1. A giant panda is much bigger than your
teddy bear.

Giant
panda looks cuddly and cute when you search photos on the internet. But it's
much bigger than you think.

An adult
panda weight more than 45 kilos (100 pounds), and can be about 1.5 meters (5
feet) long!

2. Giant pandas are good at climbing trees and can also swim.

Giant
pandas can't stand and do kung fu moves like Po in Kungfu Panda. But they are
good tree climbers. They can climb trees from 7 months old.

Giant
pandas are bears, and like other bears, they can swim.

3. Pandas go from
pink to white and black (or brown).

Pandas are
born looking like baby badgers — fur-less, pink, and blind. The iconic
black and white colour comes later, after about three weeks.

Not all
giant pandas are black and white! A few are brown and white, but
these are very rare.

4. Pandas have so
many fans because they look cute.

"The looks
of a teddy bear" are what makes pandas so popular. Pandas appeal to our
"cuteness receptors" because they have large, front-facing eyes, and are
extremely furry, so we therefore think of them as cuddly and cute.

This was
the subject of a recent BBC1 study by scientist Gordon Buchanan, and this is
why almost all of us like pandas.

5. Pandas are "lazy"
— eating and sleeping make their day.

As about
all a panda does all day is eat and sleep, you are best to get up early for a visit to a panda park, so you see them when they are active.

One reason
for pandas being rare is that breeding is not high on their list of
priorities. And with only a one-day window a year for a female to conceive
naturally, it is hardly surprising that pandas are an endangered species.

6. An adult can
eat 12–38 kilos of bamboo per day!

Giant pandas' diets are 99% bamboo.

A 45-kilo
adult (and pandas can reach 150 kg in captivity) spends as long as 14
hours eating. And it can eat 12 to 38 kilos of bamboo a day.

Pandas' favorite food is bamboo shoots. If you do the Panda Keeper Tour, which I can
personally recommend, you too can eat bamboo, although what you eat will be
cooked for you first. (Read more about Panda Keeper Tour below.)

7. A panda Can Poop 28 Kilos per day!

Pandas can
poop as much as 28 kilos/day. In the past the undigested bamboo pieces in
the poop were made into picture frames and bookmarks — no, apparently they
did not smell!

Panda's poop
points in their direction of travel, so they can be easilytracked in the wild.
Unfortunately, historically this led to them being more endangered, but now it
aids researchers.

8. Pandas have
carnivorous teeth, but they eat bamboo and fruit.

Since
giant predators like sabre-tooth tigers are no longer around, pandas didn't
need to be as fast, and turned into vegetarian specialists to avoid
becoming extinct themselves.

We all
know them as eating only bamboo, but they like some fruit too, and can eat meat.
One panda park we visited had a photo of a panda devouring a vulture.

Although
they still have sharp teeth and the digestive tract of carnivores, they
don't have the energy to chase anything, so their prey would virtually have to
land in their lap, or be injured and too slow to escape.

9. You can see
panda babies in August.

Lovely panda cubs

Pandas
are usually born in August, because the panda's mating months are March to
May and gestation is 3 to 5 months.

Females
mainly produce two offspring, but only the stronger one survives in the wild.
In the research bases in Chengdu, the other twin is hand-reared, and swapped
regularly with the mother so she can raise two cubs each pregnancy. Some of the
money you pay in entrance fees funds this successful project.

10. Prehistoric
pandas lived up to 2 million years ago.

Fossils of
pandas have been dated between 1 and 2 million years old. Once pandas were
widely distributed across the whole of China. Now they only live in the wild in
remote areas of China's Tibetan foothills.

11. Pandas have 6
toes to grasp bamboo.

Panda paws

Pandas
have a 6th "digit" on the heels of their fore-paws. With their
extra "thumbs" they can manoeuvre the bamboo into fat cigar shapes for efficient eating.

12. Strange
behavior! Pandas like to lick copper and iron.

"Pandas are said to have a predilection for copper and iron.
They really seem to enjoy licking every scrap of food from their metal bowls,
even turning the bowl in their two dexterous paws. An ancient reputation as a
licker and eater of copper and iron came from a liking for dishes or cooking
pots in dwellings of Chinese peasants."

— from
"The Giant Panda" by David Taylor, an interesting source if you want
to know more.

Imagine
you were living in a remote mountain dwelling, and the first time you see a giant
panda, with claws and teeth as big as your fingers, is when it has come to your
house to eat... You'd probably be terrified and let it lick your pots!

Another
strange behaviour, but with a modern twist, we witnessed, is them
enjoying "fruit lollipops" — fruit frozen in a metal dish of
water to cool them down in the heat of summer in Chengdu.

13. The only
panda in the West — Chi Chi in London

Panda Chi Chi in the 1960s in London Zoo

Chi Chi
the giant panda lived in London Zoo from 1958 to 1972. She was bought for
£12,000 (now pandas are rented for up to a million dollars a year!). I remember
going to see this panda as a child. That's probably when my love for them
started. That, and a panda teddy that was as big as me!

Once the
most famous panda was the one on the WWF logo (still World Wildlife
Fund in the US and Canada, or World Wide Fund for Nature elsewhere), which you
may not know was designed after Chi Chi, the only panda in the West in 1966,
when the logo was founded.

All giant
panda cubs born in captivity to foreign zoos, when lent out, are the property
of the Chinese Government and have to be returned.

China Highlights' Most Popular Giant Panda Tours

If you want to
see China's lovely giant pandas, we can tailor-make
a tour for you to see pandas according to your particular
requirements.